Hello my boys and girls, today is the day of another guide and story of a famous sport. I talked about Football some days ago so now I believe it is time for Basketball.
Basketball is 5vs5 team game with a purpose of shooting the ball through a hoop 3+ meters above in order to score. When a team scores in tis considered as a 2 points but if a basket or score is made outside of three points arc as you may guess it is considered as a 3 points one. There are also free throws that worth 1 point and they are given on some occasions depending on the type of foul and number of team fouls.
I believe you got the idea even though most of you know about it so let’s start with the history of the game.
History of Basketball
There are some indications that a form of basketball played 500-1000 years before the Common Era by ancient Olmec, Aztec and Mayans. The game had many names like:
- juego de pelota in Spanish
- Pitz in Mayan
- ullamaliztli in Nahuatl
Depending on the city or the culture the game had many variations and different rules, for example some played it with rubber balls and others with decapitated skulls of their enemies. The purpose was like in basketball to score by putting the ball or skull through a stone ‘’hoop’’ that was above the playing field. You can imagine that religion was into these games and affected them in many ways like blood spilling, killing of the losers(not that common) or that the winning team was favored by the gods. Finally a quite interesting rule was that when the game was tie, the team that achieved that result remained with those points but the other lose it all for example if the game was 5-4 for Cuzco and then 5-5 then the Cuzco team lose the 5 points and started from 0 so the game was now 0-5 (whoever reaches 8 would win)
DECAPITATED SKULLS OF THEIR ENEMIES!!!
The first kind of official Basketball took place on January 20th 1892 in Springfield Massachusetts by Canadian doctor James Naismith that invented the game for the YMCA to play during winter months. He created 13 rules that many of them are in use nowadays and some of them are:
- the ball may be thrown in any direction with one or both hands.
- The ball may be batted in any direction with one or both hands.
- A player cannot run with the ball, the player must throw it from the spot on which he catches it, allowance to be made for a man who catches the ball when running at good speed.
- The ball must be held in or between the hands, the arms or body must not be used for holding it.
- No shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping or striking in any way the person of an opponent shall be allowed. The first infringement of this rule by any person shall count as a foul , the second shall disqualify him until the next goal is made, or if there was evident intent to injure the person, for the whole of the game, no substitute.
- The side making the most goals in that time shall be declared the winner. In the case of a draw, the game may, by agreement of the captains, be continued until another goal is made.
The first match took place at that year with 18 players, 9vs9 having a soccer ball instead of the basketball ball we know today. Because none was familiar with this game it lasted 30 minutes with the final score be 1-0 ( yes yes you heard it 1-0). There, someone proposed the name Basketball which was adopted and in a few years the game grew in popularity a lot.
Before 1896 women initiated into the game and soccer ball used in every match. At 1896 and more particular on November 7 1896 the first known professional game took place in Trenton New Jersey under Trenton masonic temple (ha-ha) with players being paid 15$
Fun fact, one of them took 16$ making him the first highest paid player!
After that, Basketball was here to stay and the popularity of it grew and grew in such a extend that at 1932 FIBA was formed by (Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania and Switzerland) and 4 years after that at 1936 Basketball earned his sit in the Olympics games
Fun fact#2 America won every Olympic Basketball championship until 1972
On February 27 1940 the first Basketball game is televised from Madison square garden and 5 years from then the 3 point scoring system was introduced to award the players shooting from far distance. On June 6 1946 the BAA was formed (Basketball association of America) with teams in many cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and others.
A couple of quick facts that you may find interesting that happened the following years
1954 Minneapolis Lakers was the first team to win 3 consecutive Championships
1961 Wilt Chamberlain is considered the greatest player of his time
1964 Boston Celtics have the most NBA championship titles
1981 Michael Jordan is considered the greatest player of all time
1997 First woman referee
Basketball has a long history and it is a very entertaining sport to watch. Unlike football that you may wait a lot of time to see a goal in basketball you can see a lot score points in a few minutes and in different ways. Basketball I believe is more spectacular to watch, smaller field, huge players, many tricks, shots and dunks form a much more entraining type of game for anyone to see. Moreover, the NBA has given a whole new lvl of this game and don’t forget, huge amount of money are spend for Basketball so you can expect only growth to this sport.
I hope you learned something you didnt know today, if you want more have patience i am here for you, in the meanwhile if you want to see other posts of this section just click the football history i made recently
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